Bristol YogaSpace

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The Bristol yoga community are joining together on September 14th 2013 for our first annual Bristol Yoga Trail! An open day of free yoga classes and events across 6 locations in Bristol.

It's a wonderful chance to join in and explore the different yoga centres in Bristol, try different yoga styles and yoga classes. Or attend a talk or see a yoga film later at YogaWest in the evening. All are welcome and the classes will be free and open to all levels and abilities of fitness. No need to book, simply join in and enjoy!

A common complaint - stiff shoulders, limited mobility in the neck and discomfort in the upper back, shoulder, neck area. Accumulated tension, often caused by working at a desk, poor posture, cycling etc. all contribute to tension and stiffness related pain. There are some great yoga postures that gently get to the root of the problem and release blockages and free up the area. And without them, or regular massage, it doesn't resolve by itself. We don't really do any natural movements that will release that part of the body, unless we make the extra effort. So it just gets worse over time. So many of us hunch our shoulders and have a rounded upper back as a result.

It is good to see yoga being clinically researched to demonstrate how it can help. I see benefits in my students and anecdotally hear how it helps them regularly. I currently have two yoga therapy students who are greatly benefitting from the gentle releasing of the shoulders and neck. You need to work carefully and gradually, but gentle stretching and movements will help. See more on the research here:

Affecting up to a third of breast cancer survivors, fatigue can't be underestimated for its impact on a sufferers daily life. Fatigue can be debilitating and is often not taken seriously enough. A study published recently has demonstrated the benefits of practicing yoga to help overcome persistent fatigue in breast cancer survivors. 12 weeks of yoga practice in a randomised, controlled study not only found significant reduction in fatigue, but also increased vigor. Details on the study can be found here (1). Also see the British Wheel of Yoga article here. This doesn't mean heading to your nearest group yoga class however. When suffering from fatigue it is important not to be exhausted by the yoga. A group yoga class would likely be too much to begin with. Short, gentle, regular yoga practices would be more beneficial, gradually progressing as improvements are felt. Personalised home yoga practice, or therapeutically applied yoga, is most effective when embarking on yoga for those suffering from fatigue.Get in touch for more info on getting started with your own home practice designed to meet your health and energy needs. (1) Bower, J. E., Garet, D., Sternlieb, B., Ganz, P. A., Irwin, M. R., Olmstead, R. and Greendale, G. (2012), Yoga for persistent fatigue in breast cancer survivors. Cancer, 118: 3766–3775. doi: 10.1002/cncr.26702

The good news is that Yoga is becoming increasingly popular and many of us are starting to realise and take advantage of all that it has to offer.

Two new yoga studios have opened their doors this month which is a wonderful addition to the range of yoga classes available in Bristol. YogaWest in Bishopston has reopened with new owners Diana and Mike Penny - a warm welcome to BristolBCY Bishopston is a brand new branch of BCY (Bristol City Yoga) on Kennington Avenue near Ashley Down Road

The ancient philosophy and methodology that is Yoga is becoming more and more accessible to us here in the west and has so much relevance to our lives today.

If you haven't already, come along to a Yoga class soon (the YogaSpace term is about to get started and we always recommend taking a course of yoga wherever possible rather than a few one-off classes) and start to experience and learn the tools and practices that can support daily life and deeply enhance your wellbeing (and the wellbeing of those around you too!).

You don't immediately think of the Olympics or yoga championships when you think of yoga. But there is a small but growing movement for encouraging competition in yoga with yoga celebrities like Bikram Choudhury at the forefront of the movement.

Yoga competitions currently judge asana (postures) based on strength, flexibility, alignment, difficulty of the poses demonstrated and overall demeanour and execution. More about it in the emerging trend and Olympic Yoga aspirations in this interesting article in the Telegraph this week.

The arguments against competition in yoga are relatively obvious. For a long time, and now more than ever, the tools and techniques of yoga have been used for individual development. Using bodywork, breathing, study, meditation etc. with personal aims that will be different from one person to the next. You might be at your group yoga class working on an old back injury that your yoga practice helps, the person next to you in a class may be settling an over anxious mind. How can there be a competition in this?

But to reject the notion of yoga as an Olympic sport as an obviously ludicrous notion perhaps could be short-sighted. If you agree that the more people who practice yoga the better, and that the benefits to practicing yoga are widespread and adaptable and have lots to offer people from all walks of life, then it naturally follow on on from that that the more people who know about yoga the better - and what better way to get to know about it than seeing it on TV in the Olympics? Of course that is a simplistic argument, and what you would see on TV would be a range of twisted bodies doing gymnastic type moves. But it could pique curiousity, and be followed up by perhaps venturing to a yoga class to find out more about it. The onus is then on yoga teachers to gradually introduce the student in to the full range of potential that yoga has to offer. Perhaps this could inspire a new wave of people to try yoga, or perhaps it would just foster more spectator participation which really would miss the point. The physical beauty that makes up one of the aspects of yoga does deserve spectators. BKS Iyengar emphasises this in his approach to teaching as a way to encourage uptake and participation. So perhaps Olympic Yoga a natural extension of this?

Patanjali would almost certainly disapprove and have no interest in this as a pursuit. In the Yoga Sutras he warns against getting caught up in the physical comforts that yoga can bring, seeing it as a big potential pitfall. But in the West the physical benefits are the typical starting point for anyone trying yoga. That is the reason for getting involved. So perhaps Olympic yoga isn't as far off as perhaps we might think it is, and not as ludicrous as it initially sounds.